


stumble through

by losebetter



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Date Night, Fluff, M/M, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 00:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8123368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/losebetter/pseuds/losebetter
Summary: Travis takes in a breath and checks the time. A dusty 8:10 on his digital alarm clock makes a traitorous flip to 8:11 as he watches. He picks nervously at his bottom lip, stops himself, brushes his knuckles over his jaw instead, the fresh shave still sensitive.He stands, brushing the creases from his favorite jacket. Unbidden, he remembers his - friend’s, voice: Don’t dress up nice, I’ll feel bad.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenschadenfreude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenschadenfreude/gifts).



> in the name of trying to write more, smaller pieces and being less nervous about them, [i've opened up fic prompt requests on my tumblr](http://losebetter.tumblr.com/post/150814933116/re-little-prompts-and-things)! this is the first one, which of course came from my brilliant roommate [Q](http://queen-schadenfreude.tumblr.com/): _"writing prompt - nervousness, insecurities, something kinda sweet despite everything - coil & travis?"_ i've never written coil OR travis before despite having some headcanons swimming around about them, so this was a fun little challenge, and something i messily banged out in just a few hours. ^^;
> 
> for anyone unfamiliar with coil, he has a tag on my blog [here](http://losebetter.tumblr.com/tagged/ss:-coil), and looks a bit like this!

“ _This is Travis, ‘Lonely’ Miles, leaving you in Marjorie Hughes’ capable hands, with ‘One More Tomorrow.’”_ He licks his lips, smiles. “ _Good night_ ,” he croons, “ _and good luck_.”

The song winds up with comforting familiarity through his headphones - and it’s tempting to stay where he’s comfortable for one more song - but when he removes them, Marjorie’s voice comparatively muted as he sets them shakily on his desk, all bets are off.

Travis takes in a breath and checks the time. A dusty **8:10**  on his digital alarm clock makes a traitorous flip to **8:11** as he watches. He picks nervously at his bottom lip, stops himself, brushes his knuckles over his jaw instead, the fresh shave still sensitive.

He stands, brushing the creases from his favorite jacket. Unbidden, he remembers his - friend’s, voice: _Don’t dress up nice_ , _I’ll feel bad._

_But hey - just the two of us, yeah? What do you say?_

_Yeah, doin’ it right for once!_

_…listen, Miles, I really -_

_…you know. Thank you._

_Pick you up at eight?_

“Oh, honey,” he tells the microphone - clean, of course, little red light reminding him that he’s in control of who hears him, and when. 

He’s nervous, but newly so - Vadim’s well-intentioned but vague idea of  _confidence, man! hahaha!_ still hanging off him like an ill-fitted suit, but one that he grows into, modifies with his own hands a little every day, every time he presses the switch on his microphone and lets it go, every little victory accounted for. This isn’t that, that’s - this is -

_Hey… you’ve got this. Okay?_

_…_

_Travis, listen, I - I know this won’t mean - jack shit, but -_

_\- I - I’m sorry._

_I fucked up your life. I’m sorry._

And he didn’t. Hadn’t. This - he hadn’t expected this. Travis’ hands tremble so he sticks them in his pockets, stock-still, the radio station too cramped for any pacing. He takes another steadying breath, a big one, deeper than he plans. Lets it out.

 _You've got this_. Travis struggles to make himself believe it, but imagining it in his voice helps, fences context around his erratic anxieties.

He tries another breath after that, but there’s a few harsh raps at the metal door that startle him out of it and make his next heartbeat cut through his throat, the back of his neck, his ears. He reaches for the door on instinct and trips when he remembers his hands are still in his pockets, and -

He takes them out and rests his palm on the door for just a moment. Breathes again. The knocking doesn’t start again, though he knows it will if he’s quiet too long. For a last pair of seconds, he lets himself exist, wishes himself luck.

Travis opens the door.

The first thing he notices is that Coil is wearing a ratty black vest, open over his usual filthy shirt. The second thing he notices is that Coil is - bleeding, profusely, fresh blood dripping over the swell of his busted lip and from a cut on the side of his long nose.

“Oh,” Travis says, which he thinks is fair. And then: “H - holy shit.”

Coil squints, as if confused, then abruptly wipes some of the blood on his face around, not cleaning it so much as smearing it off onto his hand and running it into the dirt stains along one side of his jaw. He shakes out his fingers and Travis sees blood splatter onto the stairs in front of his door.

“Fuck. Miles? Uh - I’m - " - he flounders, and then blurts, “bleeding.”

“Yeah!” Travis agrees readily, because there’s no arguing that. There’s a pause. “Are you…” He hesitates, unsure how to ask, then steels himself. “Are you d - drunk? Did you get into a fight?”

“I’m not drunk!” Coil insists, suddenly desperate and still very actively bleeding all over Travis’ front stoop. He shifts his weight. “I’m not drunk,” he repeats, meeting Travis’ eyes. “I’m just - late, and - " he shakes out his hand again, looking frustrated - “- and bleeding, and, I - I _had a fucking reservation_  - " he growls, frustration slipping into genuine rage in the space of a blink, which is where Travis finally feels the need to step in.

“Coil!” he says, and Coil swings around to stare at him like a dog brought to heel, sharpened teeth hidden, round eyes on him. Travis bites his lip and moves back from the doorway, opening it wider. “Um. Do you want to come in?” He feels his features soften, his anxiety subsiding. Something about Coil’s consistency is calming, even with how upset he seems, and - he wants to help. “Tell me what happened.”

Coil looks down at his feet, shuffles his worn-out high tops. He clutches the side of his head, fingernails scraping gently through his messy undercut where the hair is just barely starting to grow back. He doesn’t come into the station, but he leans a little closer to the door, so Travis leans a little further out of it.

“It’s that rat-bastard,” Coil snarls, though he’s clearly holding back, which Travis appreciates. “Cooke.”

Travis blinks. “Cooke? H - Henry Cooke?” He clears his throat. “Doesn’t he own the Taphouse in the stands?”

Now Coil is looking guilty, like maybe he did something he shouldn’t have. “Yeah, I - I had a - friend - Valentine, make a reservation up there.” Under the blood and splotchy bruises smeared over his cheeks, Travis can actually see his skin go a bit pink. “For us. For tonight. I mean for - for you and me. Not you and me and Valentine.”

“What, um. What happened?” Travis still feels like there are pieces he’s missing, but he knows Coil well enough to know that explaining, getting it out, will make him less jumpy and more willing to answer lingering questions.

“I went up there,” Coil explains. “Just - wanted to check in, I was on time, I jus’ wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any trouble, because - “ He stops speaking suddenly, and gives Travis a look made of such naked affection that his heart does a funny little flip in his chest. “I wanted to do it right. Like we said, remember?” Travis nods, and Coil forces out a guttural breath. “I get in there - fucking, asshead bastard Cooke starts makin’ a stink about it, talking shit about ‘scummy outsiders,’ starts makin’ people look at me, and - "

Travis watches as Coil looks away, clearly struggling. “I punched him.” His stomach sinks, but Coil raises both hands and wiggles his fingers a little. “Not - I mean, just - with my hands.” And now that he mentions it, Travis can see the bruised knuckles, the unwashed bloodstains.

The thing is - he’s heard stories about the Vault Dweller, both from the horse’s mouth and not - hell, he’s told a fair share of his own - but if even half of them are true, the idea that he’d ‘just used his hands’ isn’t completely comforting.

Travis swallows. “Is he alive?”

He’s not sure what he expects, but Coil balks. “I - y - yeah, of course, I wasn’t gonna - “ He licks his lips and fidgets. “I just, I started a fight, but he - got some hits in too, he had these guys workin' for him, it was uh…”

Before they’d started dating - or, trying to - Travis would’ve pegged shame or grief as uncharacteristic for Coil, things that happened to other people, but he’s beginning to learn that there’s more to him than the man himself probably wishes there was.

“I was already late,” Coil says. He doesn’t continue, only meets Travis’ eyes again, looking - well. Looking dirty and bloody and guilty and like he’d lost a fight, and like the one thing he’d tried so hard to get right had blown up in his face.

Travis looks him in the eyes. “It’s okay,” he offers quietly, but with certainty.

Coil gulps, then takes a few scuffy steps up to meet Travis at the doorjamb, still looking up at him from a step below, achingly careful. His hands are in his pockets, bloody and bruised but safe, now. “You’re not mad?”

“I’m not mad,” Travis confirms. He shifts his shoulders, letting them relax a fraction in the strange hush they’ve created, even the open lawn of Travis’ little trailer blanketed in privacy by the night. “I was worried,” he admits.

There’s another scuff, Coil clearly nervous. “I’m sorry. For - making you worry.” It’s clipped, awkward, but Travis believes him.

“It’s okay,” he repeats. He feels like they’re two of the children from the schoolhouse down the way, learning the words to apologize and accept apologies, but the thought makes him smile, imagining Coil folded awkwardly into one of those little chairs. For good measure, he adds, “I forgive you.”

Coil demurs, but past his swollen lip Travis can tell he’s pleased. He chuckles, his laugh rough from disuse, and looks up, smiling enough to show that there’s blood all over some of his front teeth, too. “Do you still wanna go on a date?”

“Um,” Travis hazards. “W - We should probably, go another time.” 

Before Coil’s expression can close in on itself again, shadows under a rolling stormcloud, he says, “but you should, definitely come inside now. So I can get you cleaned up.”

“Oh,” Coil replies, relieved. He smiles again - no teeth this time, but Travis thinks he’s done it on purpose as a means of trying not to scare him. There’s pleasant surprise in his green eyes, the corners pushed up. “Sure thing.”

And - damnit. Travis bites his lip. “One more thing though?”

Coil sways towards him, rolling forward on his toes and back to his heels - a feat of balance on Travis’ little metal steps. Small, but Travis notices. “Yeah?”

Travis ducks down a little bit, tilts his chin, and presses a sweet kiss right to Coil’s grinning lips, careful of the split. He can feel Coil’s surprise in the soft _o_  his mouth becomes, but he pulls back afterwards, both of them on shaky feet from the elevation. 

Coil isn’t grinning anymore, looking starry-eyed - then his eyes widen, sheepish. “You got blood on you,” he points out, so blunt and so clearly worried that Travis laughs.

“It’s fine,” he assures. He steps back from the door, letting Coil step past him and appreciating the satin back of his vest - clearly a salvage job that he’d done his best to clean up, but it suits him. “I have a first aid kit in the duffel, I can handle it.” He hears Coil rummaging around and closes the door, finally, surreptitiously wiping the bloody smear off his mouth and onto his wrist. In such a tiny space, he can hear the hum of music from his headphones on the desk, and lets himself smile.

When he reaches Coil, first-aid kid in his hand, there’s something wry about his features. He shakes the plastic box, the contents rattling around.

“There’s a lot more in here than there used to be.” He doesn’t sound upset - he actually sounds a bit appreciative, under the snark.

Travis shrugs. “Someone’s gotta look out for you.” He means for it to sound more flippant, but he’s still not used to the acoustics of station after so long outside, and it turns into a gentle murmur halfway through. Coil holds the kit in both hands, looking thoughtful.

“You always do,” Coil looks up with a bloody grin, jerks his head toward the microphone, and Travis immediately reaches up to touch the back of his neck, embarrassed - but Coil’s not making fun of him. He almost sounds - impressed.

“You, uh - you listen to the show?” In hindsight, Travis guesses - sure, but -

Coil is sitting right in front of him, warm and worn and crouched next to his bed, but something about him always feels just this side of impossible, inhuman. Travis knows anyone can listen to his show, but he’d always figured Coil was too busy doing - whatever he does, whatever covers him in blood and bruises all the time.

“'Course I do,” Coil says proudly. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

Travis believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> [here](http://losebetter.tumblr.com/post/150843322241/writing-prompt-nervousness-insecurities) is the original fic post on tumblr, in case that's your thing. ♥ thank you very much for reading!


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